


Ferragamos

by nausicaa_of_phaeacia



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post Season 01, Prompt Fic, Season 01, Sillyness, skoulsonfest2k14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 15:48:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2197578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nausicaa_of_phaeacia/pseuds/nausicaa_of_phaeacia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stakeout: Coulson and Skye in a van. Plus a hotel, wires, an expensive dress, acrobatic talent, champagne, and ferragamo heels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ferragamos

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RowboatCop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/gifts).



> For the skoulsonfest2k14 (tumblr).   
> I was in a rush writing this one, too (I always am. Wonder what's up with that), hope you still like it. :)  
> I own my own ideas only.
> 
> For RowboatCop, thanks for the inspiration.
> 
> Prompts:   
> [UNDERCOVER]; [RAIN]

She's pretty sure this is the absolute worst stakeout she's ever had. They are sitting inside a pretty desolate van that's been used as a Chinese takeaway stand, and the corners of everything smell of soy sauce. Also, it's raining like mad and because the van's only half underneath a wooden roof, the noise is really unbearable in the back of the van where, naturally, she's sitting, keeping an eye on like a dozen cameras while actually trying to do work. Well, trying to hack her way into the hotel's security system (which is an actual challenge ... must be a mob lair or something).

Coulson, on the other hand, impossible to faze by anything or anyone at this point (totally being his tough agent self, reading the newspaper on the driver's seat), can't be disturbed by the water noises; Skye is starting to understand how dripping sounds can be a form of torture and can't help being genuinely annoyed. Drip, swoosh, drip, drippety _fucking_ drip. This is actually a hard one and while she's definitely worked under worse circumstances, this small thing is making her understand which sort of feelings is normally inviting the Hulk. Coulson's just hanging there, turning pages, not paying attention to anything but the news, it seems. She's typing and typing but nothing usable is coming up, so after almost three hours of _drippeties_ , she smashes the laptop shut.

Coulson turns around.  
"What?" She almost jumps at him.   
He takes off the surveillance glasses.  
"I can't stay here, Coulson. The noise is making me go mad. Can't hack like this. Got eyes everywhere but how am I supposed to manipulate the feed with the Eleventh Plague raging above my head?" She lets out a sigh, it sounds pretty pathetic, and to be fair, she's not mad at him – she's mad at herself.

"I want out," she says.  
"Do you want me to call Agent May and tell -"  
"No, I mean, I want to stay, but I need out of the van."  
"The Eleventh Plague is going to soak you to the bone."  
"I'll go and check out the elevator camera system inside the hotel, then."  
He gives her a weird look, scanning her clothes with his eyes. Flannel shirt, jeans, loose braid, sneakers.  
"Oh, I get it. Not posh enough."  
His smile is somewhat apologetic, as if to tell her that he does appreciate the checkered shirt and the independent hair.  
"Maybe _I_ should go inside, though. You could tell me what to look for over the comms. I'm sure I can figure out the location of their tech room."  
He's right. "Fifth floor," she grits out from between her teeth. Of course, Coulson could get inside anywhere. It's not just the suits – it's that he really looks as if being inside suits were actually his vocation. As is being inside suits were the thing he could do best (not counting saving the world, clearly).

He carefully folds the newspaper, as if to stall a little, then grabs one of the five umbrellas Simmons made them bring, puts his spy glasses back on and scoots over to the passenger seat. He turns around and smiles at her. "I'll call for help before I drown, I promise."  
She can't help grinning at that.

She tries to do the hacking in the front seat, but the wi-fi is really weak there. Goddamnit. After half an hour of stubbornly trying to maintain the signal, she calls May over the comms. Out of sheer boredom, pretending to need more intel. There's a hint of amusement in Melinda's voice, but Skye's politeness tells her to pretend not having noticed. Before ending the transmission, May jokingly tells her to infiltrate the hotel's high society (by putting on a million dollar dress) and enjoy herself inside the building while waiting for Coulson.  
It's not really a joke, but Skye makes herself laugh. Well. That _would_ be better than rotting here in this recycled soy sauce cemetery swamp. With the rain banging on the roof.

The signal doesn't get better after two hours, though, and as she sits down in the back of the van again (the noise wasn't much better in the front, and there's good wi-fi here at least), she realizes she hasn't heard even one word from Coulson. Suddenly nervous, she checks every single camera. All the angles. All the key card data. Everything. There's no sign of Coulson. One camera remembers him getting out of the elevator on the fifth floor.  
It can't take him more than two hours to call her, right? To ask questions about the millions of wires and buttons and connections and how to produce the right short circuit? She tries to think clearly. He's still in there, which means he's either been made or can't figure out how to help me manipulate the feed. He hasn't called in, which means he's either been made or in danger. 

Coulson in danger with no one around. (Nobody else has been assigned this mission.) That asks for tough measures. She raids the van, all the _stuff_ that looks like it's been around for ever, and there, in the cupboard, there is a black travelling bag that looks promising. She rips it open to find ... a pretty much M-rated dress, a very simple gray colour, but with a very, _very_ low neckline. Well, that's about the best it's going to get in here, so she puts it on, and it's almost a size too small. She turns the bag inside out, but no shoes. Good grief. Whose idea was this van anyway?

Frustrated, she takes off her sneakers and quickly loosens the braid. High society my ass – but still, a lot better than before. She considers texting May, but then again, she's a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. She's able to handle this. Earplug, umbrella. A weapon would be cool, but – no place to hide it. Well, then.

She opens the van door, bangs it shut, and runs, umbrella in one hand, the dress in the other. Almost there, she slows down and drops the fabric, doubting anyone could get access to _this_ place barefoot, making the dress hide her toes. She walks up the stairs, looking as dignified as possible. A hotel boy takes her umbrella with a bow, she ignores him. She's headed for one of the elevators, but as she's passing the counter, the receptionist is stopping her, very subtly, very politely, but with an unmistakeable "Madam?", making her turn around slowly.

"Do you have a reservation, Madam?"  
Think quickly.  
She puts both her elbows on the counter, offering the guy a very generous view, then says in her most sultry voice, her smile almost dirty,  
"I've been invited," adding, in a whisper, "you know."  
The man's eyes drop to her décolletage, but shy away again quickly, and he is audibly trying to steady his voice.  
"Certainly, Madam. You'll find the elevators right here to your left."  
Win.

Fifth floor it is. She's praying he hasn't actually been made. There is a HYDRA officer in the building whom they know to spy in on the camera footage, and she's supposed to manipulate his feed with pre-recorded material to lure him out. But HYDRA almost always means an involvement of a certain party of the mob, and it means combat-trained "friend groups", and a money flow to weaponry. A high presence of your friendly neighbourhood guy who's everybody's type as long as he's adored, but also possibly the person to deliver you to your grave, noiselessly, as soon as you reveal his connection to a party that's "completely different" from seventy years ago.

Long story short, Coulson could be in the hands of well-educated, unscrupulous, pathologically ambitious high-society Nazis. She prays for the elevator to move just a little bit faster.  
Ding.  
At least the carpet here is soothing the icy cold of her feet.  
Authorized personnel only, that must be it. Pressing her ear against the door at first, she tries to determine whether there is anyone inside, but there's nothing to beheard. Well, no combat techniques needed then.

She turns the doorknob; the room is open, Coulson must have been here.

Next thing she knows there's a revolver pointed at her head, but instantly removed as Coulson's realizing it's her. "Skye!," he yells in that kind of shouting whisper that everybody knows must actually be ruining one's voice.  
"Sorry," she whispers, sheepishly. "Are you okay? You've been in here forever."  
He puts the weapon on a nearby table full of wires.   
"Yeah. Comms broke, and walking back out would have meant I'd have -"  
"Have had to sneak back in." She nods.  
"Yeah." The answer's your regular Coulson but something about the look in his eyes isn't.

"So what about the feed?," she asks. "Can I help?"  
"I guess," he grins. "You'll figure it out in a minute."  
For a little while, they are both looking through the wire salad a little manically, until Skye triumphantly squeal-whispers (Coulson wishing he weren't suddenly so fond of such a childish, actually hard-to-bear noise), a transparent-looking wire in her raised left.  
"Okay," Coulson says, taking it from her hand, "so, where do we put this?"  
What follows is complete nonsense to Coulson but what he understands from it that the end of the wire must be connected to another wire that's to be found behind one of the ceiling's corner pieces.  
Good lord.  
Good lord, because the tables are screwed to the floor and there are no chairs or other moveable things around.

Skye seems to be having the same thought because she says, "Well, let's look at it reasonably. I can't lift you, so you'll have to lift me so I can stand on your shoulders."  
For once, Coulson's pretty much unable to answer. There seem to be words at the tip of his tongue for a minute, but he seems to reconsider. Instead, he wordlessly hands her the screwdriver, and the oh-so-sincere look on his face almost makes her laugh.

Trying to be careful, Coulson lifts her from the table she's climbed onto (quite a feat with the dress) and she steps on his shoulders, barefoot, pretty much covering him with the fabricload that is her dress.  
As she's unscrewing the plywood piece, she hears him ask, muffled, "May I ask why you're wearing one of Romanov's dresses?"  
At that, she almost falls, and he reflexively grabs her ankle.  
She takes a deep breath, her voice all calm. "Well, I couldn't walk in here with sneakers and a woodcutter shirt, could I?"  
He doesn't reply, but she could swear she heard him chuckle.

After the procedure is done, she almost whispers, "You can let me down now."   
"Alright," he mock-groans, "be careful with that screwdriver." She is babbling something about how she can access the feed from outside now because it's connected to another network system, and as usual, he can't quite follow, but he's really busy with not having any thoughts about the goddamn dress and its content as he's putting her down onto the table. Somehow, the dress still gets caught up somewhere and someone's sweaty hand slips and she unelegantly lands, her bare feet on the floor, like a bothered cat.   
"Coulson," she yells in that angry whisper, and he's about to retort that it's not his fault until he sees that the dress is pretty torn at the front, baring almost all of her left leg.  
"How am I supposed to walk out of here like that? The dress is ruined! Also, everyone is going to see now that I'm barefoot!"

He swallows. Professionality.   
"Okay..." Think, Coulson, think. There's a drop of sweat on his forehead and Skye has to resist the urge to wipe it off, because it's trickling down his cheek now and keeping her attention on his face, and she's pretty sure nobody is supposed to be staring at their boss' face like that.  
"Can you act drunk?"  
"What?" Her eyes are wide.  
"Act drunk," he tells her in a very strict voice.

He opens the door to check the corridor, then comes back with a bottle of champagne.   
"Are you _serious_?," she hisses at him when he opens the bottle (thankfully without noise or spilling, she wonders how often he must have done it). He nods.   
"You act drunk. We take the elevator. Lean on me. Halfway through the lobby, I'll start carrying you. Understood?"  
"Yes but-"  
He's already out the door.   
Bloody Coulson. Who does he think she is? A Max Reinhardt seminar trainee?  
She scurries after him and into the elevator, bottle in hand. Thankfully, there was no one on the corridor.  
Between the forth and third floor, she panicks slightly and takes a few sips from the bottle. He eyes her from the side. "Courage," she whispers apologetically, although there's not much to hope for with this champagne.  
Between the second and first floor, she ruffles her hair a bit and Coulson quickly turns away from her.

Ding.  
Skye doesn't say a word, just puts on a silly smile and starts walking in a slight zigzag, presenting the bottle, as Coulson pretends to be trying to keep her on track until, halfway through the lobby, he picks her up.  
The receptionist immediately raises his voice a little. "Sir. Sir? Can I help you?"  
Coulson nods into his direction, then says, "Thank you. She's just drunk. In case you find her shoes somewhere, you can throw them away. I never liked Ferragamos anyway."  
That seems to do the trick as Coulson is carrying her outside, Hollywood style. He nods at the doorboy who hails a cab for them. Hauling a "drunk" Skye into a car proves to be more complicated than anticipated, yet he shoos the doorboy away when he's trying to help. Thank God it isn't raining anymore.  
At the address, the driver says shyly, "But that's just around the block."  
"Yeah, so?," Coulson answers, and you can tell he's struggling, "I'll pay you double."

They are keeping up the show until the driver has disappeared. Coulson almost runs inside the van, Skye on his heels, and as soon as the door is closed, they start yelling at each other at the same time.  
"Nobody told you to come check on me -"  
"I hadn't heard from you in hours-"  
"Why didn't you just call May-"  
"You could even have used the phone-"  
"Or anyone else-"  
Frustrated, they pause to just glare at each other.   
Coulson suddenly grins. "You'll be in trouble when Romanov hears about the dress."  
"Well," she snorts, "that means I risked my life to make sure you were okay."  
"I had to carry you out though."  
"I didn't ask for it."  
"You're a lousy drunk."  
"You didn't even find the wire."  
"I let you stand on my shoulders though."  
"Almost dropped me, too."  
"Not my fault if you panic when I start talking about Romanov."  
"But you tore the dress."  
"It wasn't my goddamn fault, Skye!"  
"It's fine. She isn't going to kill me."  
Beat.  
"Or is she?"  
"She's not going to hear about it from me."  
Chuckling.

Suddenly, he grabs her by the waist and kisses her, fervently, thinking this is probably the last thing he's going to do in this life before she kills him, until he realizes she's actually kissing back. Equally fervently, it seems.  
As they both come up for air, there's a huge frown on Skye's forehead.  
"What now?"  
"Champagne?," Coulson asks, very smugly, and it's neither really a question nor a suggestion, because Skye, smiling, is kissing him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please tell me what you think :)


End file.
